Local Public Sector Alliance Board of Advisors

Serdar Yilmaz
Lead Public Sector Specialist, World Bank
E-mail: syilmaz@worldbank.org
Dr. Serdar Yilmaz is the Global Lead for Subnational Governance and Decentralization at the World Bank in Washington, DC. Dr. Yilmaz is Chairman of the Local Public Sector Alliance Board of Advisors.

Syed Khaled Ahsan, Senior Public Sector Specialist, World Bank
Khaled Ahsan is a Senior Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and a member of the LPSA Advisory Board.

Serge Allou
Technical Advisor, United Cities and Local Governments (ULCG)
Serge Allou is seconded to the UCLG World Secretariat by Expertise France on behalf of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Within the Secretariat, his primary responsibilities include the World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment and the implementation of a renewed UCLG Strategy on Local Finance. Serge is a member of the Local Public Sector Alliance Board of Advisors.

Nicholas Awortwi
Director, Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS), Accra, Ghana
Nicholas Awortwi is the Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) in Accra, Ghana. Dr. Awortwi is a member of the Local Public Sector Alliance Board of Advisors.

Emmely Benschop
Team Manager, The Hague Academy for Local Governance, The Hague, The Netherlands
Emmely Benschop is a Team Manager at The Hague Academy for Local Governance. An organizational psychologist by background, Emmely is passionate about supporting processes of organizational development and driving change in the public and non-profit sectors.

Joseph J. Capuno
Professor, University of the Philippines School of Economics
Joseph J. Capuno is a Professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics. He is a leading scholar on decentralization and local governance in the Philippines, and a member of the LPSA Advisory Board.

Isabelle Chatry
Head, Decentralization, Subnational Finance and Infrastructure Unit, OECD
Isabelle Chatry is the Head of the Decentralization, Subnational Finance and Infrastructure Unit at the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities. Her work covers several topics related to multi-level governance and regional development, including decentralization and territorial reforms, subnational government finance, and infrastructure public investment.

John Coonrod
Executive Vice President, The Hunger Project
John Coonrod is the Executive Vice President of The Hunger Project. In this role, he leads The Hunger Project’s Secretariat Team at the Movement for Community-led Development, serving as the Movement’s co-founder and global coordinator.

Khim Lal Devkota, Member of Federal Parliament, Nepal
Khim Lal Devkota is a leading (and vocal) champion of devolution and federalization in Nepal. He is currently Member of Federal Parliament (National Assembly); Former Vice Chairman, Provincial Policy and Planning Commission, Bagmati Province; and a Former Member of the erstwhile Local Bodies Fiscal Commission.

Amy Gill
Team Leader, Core Government Functions and Local Governance, UNDP
Amy Gill is Team Leader, Core Government Functions and Local Governance at UNDP Headquarters in New York and a member of the Local Public Sector Alliance Advisory Board.

Tom Hart
Senior Research Fellow, ODI
Tom is a Research Fellow with ODI’s Development and Public Finance group and a member of the LPSA Advisory Board.

David Jackson
Director of Local Development Finance, United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)
David is the Director of Local Development Finance at the United Nations Capital Development Fund and a member of the Local Public Sector Alliance Advisory Board.

Roy Kelly
Professor, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University
Roy Kelly is a member of Local Public Sector Alliance Advisory Board. He is a Professor of the Practice of Public Policy, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University and directs the Program on Fiscal Decentralization and Local Government Financial Management at the Duke Center for International Development (DCID).

Gundula Löffler
Research Fellow, ODI
Gundula is a Research Fellow with ODI’s Development and Public Finance group and a member of the Local Public Sector Alliance Advisory Board.

Christian Luy
Coordinator, DeLoG Secretariat / GIZ
Christian Luy coordinates the Secretariat for the Development Partners Network on Decentralization & Local Governance (DeLoG). Before that he worked as an advisor in the GIZ Advisory Program Governance on topics such as decentralization, sectorial governance, political participation and Agenda 2030.

Kader Makhlouf
Special Advisor to the World Secretariat, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG)
Kader Makhlouf is seconded to the UCLG World Secretariat by Expertise France on behalf of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before that he worked as Policy Advisor at Sustainable Food, International Affairs and Security in Paris.

Petar Stoykov
Governance Consultant, World Bank
Petar Stoykov is a World Bank consultant whose current work focuses mainly on decentralization while he has prior experience in projects dealing with public sector strengthening and reform, anticorruption and digital development.

Francois Vaillancourt
Professor, Universite de Montreal
Professor Francois Vaillancourt is a member of Local Public Sector Alliance Board of Advisors. Professor Vaillancourt (Ph.D. Queens, 1978) is an emeritus professor at the Economics Department of the Universite de Montreal and a Fellow at CIRANO.

Gunjan Veda
Senior Manager, Movement for Community-Led Development
Gunjan Veda is Senior Manager, Global Collaborative Research and Public Policy for The Hunger Project Canada and The Movement for Community-Led Development. In this role, she leads a multi-organizational, multi-country, collaborative research team that works to strengthen the practice, impact and evaluation of community-led development (CLD) programming globally.

Deborah Wetzel
Governance and Public Sector Management Expert
Deborah Wetzel is a U.S. national with more than 30 years of experience in development work around the world. Currently working as an independent consultant, she served in a wide range of positions at the World Bank including Director of Regional Integration in the Africa and MENA Regions; Senior Director of the Governance Practice; and Country Director for Brazil. Deborah is a member of the Local Public Sector Alliance Advisory Board.

Peter Yates
Associate Director, The Asia Foundation
Peter Yates is The Asia Foundation’s associate director for governance programs. He is a member of the Local Public Sector Alliance Advisory Board.